


Skylark

by Twitchiest



Series: Apocalypse Girl [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, better description is "post-apocalyptic slice of life", mummified dead people at some point, there are no answers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 04:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12999810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twitchiest/pseuds/Twitchiest
Summary: "Reminded me of someone," they say.Kid sits in quiet for all of a hundred heartbeats before he says, "Who?"Damn fool question. Isn't the answer obvious? Tanner stares at the kid blankly until he shifts, then says, "Me," like it was clear as air after rain.





	Skylark

_**One** _

Tower two three three was declared done with by Dedham yesterday. They've started to pull out people's finds already. Today, they're allowing people into two three four. It's a stable one, and the crowd of scavengers waiting for the official to declare that they can go in is larger than Tanner likes.

There's the usuals. Juniper, loud and boisterous, in the middle. Kimi and Hans off to the right, talking to each other. Salome jostling for a place at the front.

Tanner stays back, glancing up. This is a good looking skyscraper. Only most of the windows have fallen out.

_**Two** _

Scavenging up in Dedham's towers wasn't what Tanner dreamed of doing, when they came to Dedham. They wanted to do a lot of things. But they were a kid, then, born just before the End, and for all they'd grown up in hardship they still thought the world was good.

Tanner's been scavenging for Dedham since a year after they got here. Some fifteen, sixteen years now. They've been through towers that took months to clear, some that took a week. Not all of them have enough to take.

It's better than working the furnaces, Tanner knows. Most everything is.

_**Three** _

The official raises their hand, and everyone goes silent. Drops it, and the running starts.

Rule three of scavenging, as far as Tanner's learned: claim and document. Dedham says: finders, keepers, even if you can't carry it down. The moving teams'll do the hard work. The movers can get even ten ton machines out of a skyscraper. Tanner's got nothing but respect for those folks. Dedham even respects the claims of the dead, passing on the profits to their kin.

The dead, too, they pay for. It's just bones tossed into a burial pit, but at least they'll get buried.

_**Four** _

Tanner waits until everyone's in, or most of them. Follows slow, studying how the dirt and dust is disturbed.

Most people want the big prizes, and Tanner doesn't blame them for that. Tanner prefers lighter things, though, or something that makes a steady wage. Documents, books, old magazines, blueprints. There's always those who want books, but Manor is paying pretty well these days, and that means something. Manor's working on a printing press, rumour has it, and they'll be wanting even more pre-End knowledge if they finally get one up and running. Maybe Tanner might visit their library, one day.

_**Five** _

Scavengers tend to avoid the bottom floors. There's not much left on them. Tanner, though, goes picking through the first three floors, and finds three boxes of some old periodical travel magazine. Not much profit, but you never know what someone wants these days. Tells you where places were, at least.

They favour a kind of black, near-permanent, paint, and dig out a pot of it from their pack. They sketch out their symbol on the box tops, and mark the place on their hand-drawn map. There's jewellery, too, pre-War gold that still shines. It isn't worth much these days.

_**Six** _

A couple floors up, Tanners spots another scavenger. Or, hears them long as they're walking up the stairs, turns the corner to find themselves in an open office.

So this tower's mostly an office block. Not great pickings, for the treasure hunters.

This other scavenger is coughing. Not like they breathed in dust. These are dry, hacking coughs that speak of damage. Still coughing, when they see Tanner they turn and flail a stick in Tanner's direction. Hands up, Tanner moves on.

Not like there's a hundred other floors to go through.

Nothing here worth fighting a dead man for.

_**Seven** _

Rule one: keep your skin covered.

Tanner only lets their face go uncovered, wrapping their arms and hands in cloth. They have guards for their knees, elbows, ankles. Their hair is under a tight cap. They can do this, because heat doesn't faze them. They have, too, tough but light leather shoes that nothing can penetrate.

The skyscrapers will take everything you give them.

One scratch can lead to deadly infection. There's white powder in the walls and pipes, sometimes, that gives you a cough that kills you. There's poisons up in the skyscrapers, and broken glass. Dangers beyond measure.

_**Eight** _

Days don't last all that long, when you're busy. Light turns, and Tanner doesn't carry a torch like some others. Not much point in ruining their sight for it.

Like most scavengers, Tanner prefers to stay in the skyscraper for as long as they have supplies. They've gone through a dozen office floors, full of cabinets and technology already marked, found a few more cases of things no one thought worth it.

Someone who tagged entire floors of pre-End computers has a mark like two jagged Js - that there's Juniper. She has a contact over in Guaren who buys them.

_**Nine** _

Someone's already started a fire up in the relative shelter of the seventeenth floor, out of old desks. There's half a dozen gathered around it, talking quietly.

Tanner gives them wide berth, in the dark. Finds a small nook out of the way on the eighteenth floor and curls up, out of sight and out of mind. Never sleeps well, up in a skyscraper, wakes before dawn and is moving before their neighbours.

Better pickings, up here. There's a couple floors with locked doors, but Tanner knows how to unlock even thirty-year rusted locks. It just takes time, and patience.

_**Ten** _

This office looks almost like it did before the End, probably. If it wasn't for the lack of windows and the ever-present wind, and the bird nests and animal shit.

Higher you go, the worse the wind gets. On bad days, stormy or in winter, Tanner doesn't go scavenging on upper floors without a rope.

They pick through old cabinets full of useless paper and, in someone's private office, finds a bookcase full of leatherbound somethings they can't quite understand. Not allowed to just tag a room, but you can circle an object with your mark, copied over and over.

_**Eleven** _

On and on. Tanner goes up, avoids people, opts for documents and sometimes cabinets, lucks onto one full of building blueprints that they know at least one of the far western caravans will want. They like the pre-End world, way way over in the west. Keep trying to act like they're still in it.

But the wind's getting up. On Tanner's fifth day, they're on floor forty, maybe not ten floors from the top - they've been in taller skyscrapers with better pickings - and meeting a few people on their way down. But Tanner's got water enough to last this out.

_**Twelve** _

Something's wrong, and it's not just the wind. Although that's not strong enough yet to be a real danger, as long as Tanner stays away from the edges. The top floors are untouched, and Tanner sets about claiming and documenting. There's a safe or four no one's gotten to, and Tanner likes the challenge, even if they usually just have pre-End money in them. Sell pretty well, if you've already broken into them and know the code.

It's too tidy up here, though. Like a place someone lives in.

Tanner follows the tidiness like a trail, upwards and onwards again.

_**Thirteen** _

The sleeping place up on the forty ninth and top floor should surprise Tanner. Somehow, it doesn't. Not the makeshift tanning rack or drying meat or haphazard, scrappy bed.

Little kid with a knife surprises them, though.

"Stay away," the kid snaps. "I won't let you!"

Let them what, isn't said.

Tanner raises their hand. Rule four: back off. Tanner's small, slim, not a fighter, not even with a runty maybe-teen like this. And people _will_ fight, sometimes over the strangest things.

Fighting for your home, though, Tanner gets.

The kid hesitates. Steps back. "I will," he? she? says.

_**Fourteen** _

Rule two: don't overstretch your supplies.

Tanner settles on the floor under the kid's watchful gaze and digs into their bag. They favour energy intensive ration bars, not least because they last. Tanner isn't ever going to plan on finding edible canned food, or the water, not without their purifying tablets.

They pull one of the bars out, oats and dried fruit and honey wrapped in oilcloth. Offers it. The kid takes a trembling step forward, a second, then bolts forward, snatches it, and retreats to a corner, rusty old knife in reach, scrabbling to unwrap it.

Well, Tanner thinks. Shit.

**Fifteen**

The kid speaks, so the kid will understand Tanner, so Tanner opens their mouth and says, "They're going to take this building down."

Their voice is low and rough. They don't talk much, in truth.

Kid stops mid-chew to stare at them. "I'll fight them," the kid says.

Tanner shrugs. "Sure. You'll fight off the movers, and demolition crew." Rakes their eyes over the kid, who's thinner than Tanner. "What you doing here, anyway?"

Silence. And chewing.

"Not my place to judge," Tanner says, shifting their bag onto their shoulder and then, for no reason at all, does something stupid.

_**Sixteen** _

Kid isn't much of a fighter, either. Yells like murder when Tanner lunges forward and grabs them, shoves them down and sits on their legs. Gives up about five minutes in, panting. Tanner digs their paint out and holds their head down by their forehead, painting their mark on the kid's cheek.

"There," Tanner says, letting go. "Now they won't hurt you." Mostly.

Tanner tucks the paint away. "I'm going to leave, now," they say, and shifts. The kid stays still, wide-eyed, suspicious, food still clutched in their hand. Tanner's as good as their word, even leaves another ration bar.

_**Seventeen** _

A week later, just about everyone's done with the building. There's connections to be made, tower two three five to scope out. Tanner returns to their house- a pre-End bungalow with the windows boarded over- one day and find the movers on their doorstep.

A particularly burly man is holding the kid by their ragged collar, next to the stack of things Tanner claimed.

"You claimed this kid," the man says.

"I'm not a kid," the kid says petulently.

Tanner looks the two up and down. "Yup," they say.

"Hurt it," the man says, "We kill you."

"Yup," Tanner says.

_**Eighteen** _

The kid stands there next to the boxes and cabinets and bookshelf.

"You own me?" the kid says.

"Nope," Tanner says. "Help me shift this inside and I'll feed you."

The kid considers this then says, "Deal."

Rule five: avoid hangers on. Tanner thinks about it as they carry, move, and otherwise heft scavenged belongings into their house. There's room. Not like Tanner uses much space.

Scavenging's dangerous, sure, but lucrative. Or, more lucrative than feeding the furnaces and handling metal or serving, somehow, the people who do. Tanner's rule covers people wanting to con them, though, not this kid.

_**Nineteen** _

Still, Tanner thinks. The world's not a nice place to live. Most people live within Dedham rules, and won't try to steal anything. Rest don't give two shits for someone who's known for only making enough to get by. Tanner even opts for the standard supplies direct from Dedham's management. Someone else will try to con them. Dedham's quartermaster won't con a scavenger. Last time one did, every scavenger went on strike, and the furnaces stopped.

Grabbing the kid like they're scavenged property only makes Tanner look weirder. Never mind it's not the movers Tanner was protecting the kid from.

_**Twenty** _

"Why?" the kid says, sometime later. "I was going to leave."

Tanner nods, poking through their supplies. There's food enough for two for a couple weeks, even though one of them looks like they're starving. Water in the tank, fresh and clean. Food creds good enough for another month or so, and Manor's next caravan is due in three weeks.

"Might want to wash," Tanner says. "Take you down the bath house."

"The what?"

"You'll see." Does need real clothes, though. Tanner has the goods to trade for that. Was going to replace their winter coat, but that can wait.

_**Twenty One** _

Bathhouse freaks the kid out. Maybe they shouldn't have sent them ahead alone. Tanner finds the kid in a corner of the quietest room, right at the back, curled up, scrubbed near red-raw, at least five foot away from anything except their bundle of clothes.

"Huh," Tanner says. "Girl?"

The kid glares at them. "I'm a boy."

Tanner says, "Okay," and the glare vanishes, a moment. Comes back when they takes the kid's clothes and drops a fresh lot next to them.

"Don't want them," the kid says.

"Don't care," Tanner says, and walks away.

"I don't want your things!"

**_Twenty Two_ **

The kid scowls at any and everything, wearing only second-hand clothes without patches, scrubbed up fresh and clean. Couldn't get the mark off. Tanner'll show them how, in time.

People of Dedham ignore the two of them. That's fine.

"Hate you," the kid mutters.

That's fine, too. "Getting something for nothing bothers you."

Kid hesitates.

"Honesty is best," Tanner says. "Talk."

They haven't talked this much in months. No one to talk to.

"No," the kid says. "You have something on me. I don't like debt."

Tanner shrugs. "Work for me. Clear it."

"Up in the towers?" Kid eyes them.

_**Twenty Three** _

"What," the kid says, looking at the clutter that's Tanner's house. The boxes of things they claimed, on top of other boxes they're storing until the right caravans come over. There's a bedroom, and a lean-to to cook in against the ripped-out pre-End kitchen.

"Sort," Tanner repeats. "Food and board, and you sort."

"No," kid says. "That's a terrible deal."

Tanner spreads their hands. Gestures at Dedham, in the twilight, the furnaces burning. The kid turns to stare.

"Fine," he says. "I'll do it. But you come up with a better deal, you -"

"Tanner," they say. 

Kid scowls again. "Fine."

_**Twenty Four** _

"I don't know what any of this means," the kid says. Then, at Tanner's glance, "I can read! But what makes this important?" The kid's flicking through an old magazine, full of pictures.

"Manor," Tanner says.

"The fuck's Manor?"

Tanner picks up a stray pebble that's been tracked in and flicks it.

"Ow!"

"Respect matters," they say.

"Fine," the kid mutters. Then, "Can I take them outside?"

Sun's blazing out. Tanner nods, gesturing at the back, where there's an ancient, tattered, giant sun umbrella set up. Kid's face settles into the usual, picks up the entire box, and stalks out.

_**Twenty Five** _

This is good. Leaves Tanner alone with a row of safes maybe a foot wide, two foot tall. They lay on their stomach, listening, twisting a dial real slow and hoping they get the quietest little click. It's maybe not the best way, but the best ways for anything were lost when Tanner was a kid, so it does. Sometimes Tanner gets lucky.

Today all Tanner does is lay still and listen, breathing slow and steady, and gets nothing. But when they go to move this safe, inch it back against the wall, they feel something etched into the side.

_**Twenty Six** _

Kid eats like food's never coming back. Only been a week, though. Tanner comes back from trading to find the kid devouring their half of the last loaf.

Kid freezes when Tanner scuffs their foot. Tanner ignores him. Walks past and sets supplies down.

"You're going back up," the kid says.

Tanner's missed two three five, and people've been crowing about it. Splashing around their supply creds. 

Setting up the kid cost, and they've got maybe a month before traders show. They need something valuable to Dedham.

They nod.

"You coming back?" the kid says. "If you don't, I'll -" Quiet.

**Twenty Seven**

Two three six isn't much. Small, and not many scavengers. Two three seven is one of the big ones, one of the towers that'll take months to clear, full of locked and sealed doors.

Three people. One of them's the man with the cough, even paler now. Other two aren't known to them.

Cougher rushes in. Tanner outwaits the others.

It's quiet, in this once. Close. Sets the hairs on their neck standing, instant they step in.

Something's wrong. This tower's bad luck.

No choice. Tanner frowns, padding through. Something. They need something. Maybe a claim they can sell off.

**_Twenty Eight_ **

Not much to find, seems like.

This tower's odd. Lots of computers, good, they'll get some creds off Juniper for them. Maybe enough, if they stretch it. Little else, though. No books, no papers, no comforts.

Other three gave up fast.

Tanner's not leaving until they've checked it all. Floor by floor. Three days, it takes, they're being over-thorough, but on the top floor they find an office, and a cabinet of papers.

Maybe enough.

But-

They see it, as they turn. A glint in the dust of a closed-in room. A small thing. A trifle. They pick it up.

_**Twenty Nine** _

The kid sorts papers. Tanner breaks into safes.

Kid keeps the home. Tanner scavenges, and the clutter piles up, sorted into areas.

Kid's taken a few of the magazines, hidden them under his blanket in the bedroom. Tanner pretends they don't notice.

They eat, though Tanner has less. Juniper gave too good a price for the computers. Taking pity. It's enough to keep them going.

Two three seven comes, goes. Takes four months to pick through, and Tanner lucks into books about metals, smelting. Holds them longer.

Manor's late. Can feel it in the air, sharp as knives. As cold.

_**Thirty** _

Cracked safes sell. Bits and pieces sell. Traders come, traders go, and Tanner's left with respectable funds and the pitying looks fade.

Lays awake at night, though. Manor's late. Dedham will hold, without, but if Manor keeps not coming, no one will hold. Doesn't tell the kid, though. The kid gets out and about, makes friends, even with the fading mark on his forehead, and they can't keep the kid from figuring it out that way, but they can be calm at home. Solid. Kids need that, growing up, and kid's not full grown yet.

They've enough to live, anyway.

_**Thirty One** _

Grey day when someone knocks on Tanner's door. Gets worse when they open it and see a woman, dark-skinned, well-clad.

Manor came to them direct.

"I hear you have books," she says. "Let's talk."

Kid does most of the talking. Argues prices, with Tanner stepping in. The boy's settled here. Worth keeping.

Price is good. Price is high, and the woman hands them the bag of credits a weight lifts right off them. Enough be comfortable, for months.

Too much.

Something's up.

"What else?" they say.

The woman turns away from leaving to look at them. Still and quiet, unblinking.

_**Thirty Two** _

"Tower two three six," she says. "It was government. Before the end. You're the one that checked it all, right?"

Not good. Attention builds on itself. Tanner shifts. "... yeah."

"We want to know if you found something. It's dangerous, but doesn't look it." Her voice is even. "Metal. Looks like a bracelet."

The kid says, "Didn't claim anything like that."

Tanner nods. Shrugs. "Shinies don't sell."

"We'd have paid for this," the woman says. "If you remember anything, come to our camp. Ask for Bay."

Tanner nods.

"And get us more books!" She laughs. "We've read all of ours."

**Thirty Three**

House is empty, when Manor takes all the magazines away, and the leather-bound books, anything paper that isn't tucked away. Leaves them with emptiness to fill back up again.

"You didn't find anything like that," the kid says. Not a statement.

Tanner sits back against the wall and thinks.

"That's creds," the kid says. "If you found something-"

"Dangerous," Tanner says. "She said dangerous."

Kid shuts up. Kid eyes the shut door.

"Didn't find anything like that," Tanner says. Lie, they both know it. "Wouldn't have if I did." True. "We got enough." True.

Kid bites his lip and nods.

_**Thirty Four** _

"Why did you keep me?" kid asks, one time. It's morning. Kid's sat in a corner, cradling breakfast in his lap, and Tanner's leaned against a wall picking dirt out from under their nails.

Why? Tanner thinks. They were just a half-starved sprat at the top of a tower. Nothing special. Nothing new.

"Reminded me of someone," they say.

Kid sits in quiet for all of a hundred heartbeats before he says, "Who?"

Damn fool question. Isn't the answer obvious? Tanner stares at the kid blankly until he shifts, then says, "Me," like it was clear as air after rain.

_**Thirty Five** _

Rule six: no politics.

Politicking is more dangerous than scavenging. When Tanner's up in a skyscraper, there's enough for everyone, if you're smart about it. Politicking is over wealth, or prestige, power, place, reputation. Not worth it. Not worth sitting around in a drinking hole playing at it, either, boasting about prizes and telling tall tales. Better to keep your head out of the entire mess. Better to not have face or pride to lose.

Tanner's not above backing off a find. Not above tipping their head to anyone, if it means keeping the peace. Nothing wrong with staying alive.

_**Thirty Six** _

They all corner them at the bar. Juniper, Kimi, Hans, Salome. And Guns, Yvetta, and maybe more. It's the only bar in Dedham, so all the scavengers come here. This six all come over and sit around Tanner's corner table, but they can see others in the background paying attention.

Manor.

Damned Manor.

The six talk. Tanner drinks their piss-stink beer, the only one they can force themselves to drink each month, in silence. Maybe Juniper asks a question, maybe Hans. Tanner ignores them. When Tanner's done with their drink, they stand up, push through the others, and walk away.

_**Thirty Seven** _

Dedham is the city, the towers, the fresh young wasteland. But Dedham is a few streets of little brick houses in the hot red glow of the furnaces, too, and sometimes Tanner can't tell if they like Dedham, or if they're just used to it.

Somewhere behind them, Juniper says, "Wait! Damnit, Tanner."

Tanner stops.

"If you don't give us anything, they're just going to keep going. You know your own kind, Tanner. It's what we do."

Hunting and searching. Chasing. Looking for the big haul.

"Ain't no creds where I'm going," Tanner says. "Keep an eye on the kid."

 _ **Thirty Eight**_  
  
Tower two three eight is full of old apartments. Good for Tanner's book supply, not much else. They sweep. Demolition are still taking down two three seven, and two three nine won't be open for a while. Opening two three eight now was just courtesy, keep the scavengers busy. Tanner finds themselves a nice little cupboard, matching bookshelf, good for the kid to use. A couple wall-safes, old art and statues that go, sometimes, is worth the investment.  
  
What Tanner finds, no one cares about, not yet. But they can feel people watching. Juniper, Kimi, and worst of all, Salome.  
  
_**Thirty Nine**_  
  
People go missing, in a city like Dedham. People who're sick. People who can't judge right and rush other people, thinking they have something worth taking. Something Manor'd pay for.  
  
People fall off the towers. Everyone knows picking through the old towers is dangerous.  
  
Mostly, Tanner thinks, people really shouldn't try to hold fights at the top of tall buildings. Kid doesn't ask why they have a cut on their arm, just treats it, bandages it up, and helps them conceal it.  
  
Where the desperate rush in, the smart wait.  
  
Tanner has to deal with this before anyone else tries.  
  
_**Forty**_  
  
Alone, by candlelight, Tanner studies an old map.  
  
Large parts of the city are grassy, weed-strewn wasteland. Not much grows where skyscraper rubble lies. But this map, tattered at the edges, holes where it was folded, whispers of a time when Dedham lived.  
  
Government building, the woman said. They can find that. Can find the other old government offices.  
  
Doesn't twitch for where they hid the trifle. Barely looks up.  
  
Couple of the towers are gone, beside two three six. Got maybe a month before two three nine is open. Still someone picking through two three eight.  
  
That there's time.  
  
_**Forty One**_  
  
Sometimes Tanner leaves the kid to get supplies. He's good with creds, getting better. Sometimes Tanner holes up in their house for a few days, when it's cold and grey.  
  
One night, Tanner tells the kid they're going to be out, just a few days. That they'll be back. Kid scowls, but saying nothing. Tanner leaves in the night, dark and moonless, wrapped in scavenging clothes with no skin showing but their face, and that shrouded by a scarf.  
  
They don't have much. A small pack, with some food and a map. A pair of canteens. Something else, hidden away.  
  
_**Forty Two**_  
  
Manor's supposed to have left by now, but the woman turning up at Tanner's sleeping place two nights in doesn't surprise them. She opens the door to the dingy little room they're resting in, back to the wall, steps in from the outside world, and shuts the door behind her.  
  
"You don't keep trinkets," she says.  
  
In the moonlight through the empty window, she's a shadow with a smile, and it puts more cold down Tanner's back than the air. They say nothing.  
  
She lets the smile go. "Okay," she says, and slides down the wall next to the door.  
  
_**Forty Three**_  
  
Tanner knows the city. Tanner wasn't much more than the kid, once, back when Dedham was only starting with the furnaces and the scavenging. They made their rules same way they learned how to live in the city. All the old scavengers did.  
  
Old.  
  
Tanner's nearing thirty, and they feel old.  
  
Bay doesn't know Tanner's city, but she walks where they do, and she doesn't speak unless she needs to. And Tanner knows where they're going. They've been this way before.  
  
They didn't come to Dedham alone.  
  
Rule seven: when you have a secret, you keep it behind your teeth.  
  
_**Forty Four**_  
  
It's the reverse of a tower they come to. Big old cave, kept under a hatch overgrown with grass. Tanner couldn't lock it, when they left, dumped earth over it and hoped.  
  
Didn't think they'd ever come back.  
  
Bay steps past and pries a layer of earth and grass off it like a rug, then stops and looks back. Tanner nods. She opens it, and steps back from the dark inside.  
  
Doesn't smell good, in there.  
  
Smells like old death, and dust.  
  
"Where did you come from?" she says. "Everyone has their stories. Not many of them came from outside."  
  
_**Forty Five**_  
  
Tanner remembers.  
  
Tanner remembers -  
  
Fires, cold, wind, rain. Walking town to town, staying for a season, keeping their mouths shut about before. Just their ma and them.  
  
Tanner never told anyone the stories their ma told them, never talked about the jilted anger in her, the indignance that she worked and starved and walked in a broken world. Listened. Heard. Didn't understand why they got hit for saying they wanted to stay somewhere. Didn't know why they were walking so far to go to a place with people Tanner'd never met.  
  
"Here," Tanner says. "I came from here."  
  
Bay nods.  
  
_**Forty Six**_  
  
There's a creaking ladder. Body near the base. Old body, leather skin and twisted sinew.  
  
Bay nudges it. Tanner looks at it, for a moment, remembers the man with his dark-eyed smile, and his face as he fell.  
  
They go into the dark.  
  
Air's stale, stifling. Too dark to see without light, but Bay brought a little hand-held torch from before the End. Hand-crank, to keep it powered.  
  
This was meant to be lived in. Rooms of gold and colour covered in dust, never touched, never used. Tanner hunches their shoulders and keeps walking.  
  
They'll reach the main hall eventually.  
  
_**Forty Seven**_  
  
Bay takes to smashing all the computers and screens they pass.  
  
Tanner doesn't stop her. Didn't matter. They were always empty. Only other time Tanner came here, the power worked, but the computers had nothing. Their mother screamed at them.  
  
Main hall is big. They've been walking downwards, by echoing metal stairways. There's paintings, a carpet that might have been red, tables set out with chairs, doors that lead to a dozen places. Big statue, at the end.  
  
Bay looks at it. Looks at them. "Huh," she says.  
  
"That's my da," Tanner says. "Never met him."  
  
He never got here.  
  
_**Forty Eight**_  
  
Tanner knows the door. Behind the statue. Was locked, last time, with the power on. Now the door swings right open.  
  
Woman lies on the floor, curled up. Same leather as the man, hair just the same as Tanner left it, metal shard protruding from her back just the same. Room's full of papers that were rotting, down here, when she died. Now they're just dust. Nothing to be found here. Nothing dangerous.  
  
Tanner digs out the trifle, the trinket, the nothing, and considers it.  
  
Black band. Black box on the band, with a shimmering gold symbol. Metal, and unrusted.  
  
_**Forty Nine**_  
  
"Councillor Headecker," Bay says. "That's what he's called. Right?"  
  
Tanner nods, turning to stare at the statue. White stone. "He kept ma, once. She said he owned the country." Whatever a country really was. "Said he'd be here." Safe, sound, ruling everything around him. "Said he'd have food. Water."  
  
"There's nothing here," Bay says.  
  
There was long-rotted food, water that ran brown, but no people. No da. Just ma, shrieking rage at the walls that he'd denied her this, that the bastard had abandoned her.  
  
"Give it to me," Bay says, gentle, and Tanner drops the nothing into her palm.  
  
_**Fifty**_  
  
Bay goes to the statue. She paces around it, over and over, shining the torch at it, until she sees a crack Tanner can't. She presses the nothing against it, turning the black box until something clicks, and Tanner's da's feet open up. She reaches into the blackness of a hole Tanner doesn't see into, doesn't want to see into, and pulls out something small that fits, neat and tidy, into her palm, Slips it into her pocket.  
  
A second thing, a little box, she pulls out and opens. Laughs. "I think this is yours," she says, and tosses it.  
  
_**Fifty One**_  
  
They leave the way they came, in silence. Walk back to the furnaces. Get back in broad daylight, and that puts the cat amongst the rats, all the people pretending they aren't staring.  
  
Bay calls out to one of her people she sees. "Hey! Tell Hound we're going back in a couple days, okay?"  
  
The stranger says, "Already?" and she says,  
  
"Yeah. Boss was wrong. Nothing there."  
  
Loud, public, obvious. Turns the stares into something Tanner can ignore just fine.  
  
Before they part, Bay turns and gives Tanner a look, and a smile. They get it. They don't smile back.  
  
_**Fifty Two**_  
  
Manor leaves.  
  
Tanner sits in their house and turns the box in their hand. The kid's staring at them. Says, "What's that?"  
  
They flip the box open and stare at the two gold rings inside. Angles them so they can see inscriptions, names, a blank space for a date.  
  
"A trinket," they say, shutting it. "Nothing that ever mattered." Conceals it in their palm. "Kid?"  
  
"I have a name," the kid says.  
  
That's new. "Yeah?"  
  
"Cahay," the kid says, and looks them in the eyes when they do it.  
  
"Hey, Cahay," Tanner says. "I'm leaving. Pack up if you're coming."  
  
_**Fifty Three**_  
  
Tanner's a good scavenger, especially with locks. It's painful easy to break into the quartermaster's store, that night. Quiet, Tanner leaves all their creds in a pile where it can be seen, and takes what's needed. Not much.  
  
Harder to get Cahay to sneak. Kid doesn't have a sneaking bone in his body. But people aren't watching for someone leaving. Just those trying to break in.  
  
Out on the road, kid's silent.  
  
A mile down the road, there's a box freshly wedged under a bush, with a letter rolled up and sealed, and a small note that says, "Always welcome."  
  
_**Fifty Four**_  
  
Takes a couple months to walk all the way. Could've bargained to get on any of the carts that pass, sometimes, but Tanner doesn't.  
  
Kid complains about the walking every damn day. But Tanner keeps them walking. They haven't done this for fifteen, sixteen years, but it's easy enough to fall back into. Only difference is, their ma isn't next to them, talking about all the things she was meant to have, the ingratitude of people.  
  
They like the boy's complaints better.  
  
Weather stays good, anyhow. Doesn't rain much. Kid learns how to start and keep a fire. Useful skill.  
  
_**Fifty Five**_  
  
"What was all of that even about?" the kid says, one night. "The leaving and the talking."  
  
Tanner shrugs.  
  
Kid glares at them.  
  
Tanner says, "Ma came from here. Reckon she lived in two three six." Quiet. For a long time. "Always said da would marry her up and she'd be a queen. Thought she was mad."  
  
"Yeah, well," kid says. "Was she?"  
  
Tanner nods. Thinks about a box and two gold rings and years of fevered stories. "Yes." A moment. "She told the truth, anyhow."  
  
"We never had queens," kid says. "Not even before."  
  
"No," Tanner says. "We didn't."  
  
_**Fifty Six**_  
  
First thing kid says when Bay walks up to meet them in the open gates is, "You didn't even wait for us!"  
  
Bay stares at them.  
  
"I am never walking ever again," the kid informs her.  
  
Bay's mouth twitches mere seconds before she gives in and laughs, a bright sound, one that fills the courtyard. "I'm sure someone around here can give a boy a piggyback ride," she says. "You?" And her eyes flicker up.  
  
Tanner says, "I can walk."  
  
"And there's plenty of people who want to meet you both," Bay says, eyes still on Tanner. "Come on in."


End file.
